In the fall of 2008, as the scope of the economic crisis was becoming clear, the CEO of Misys PLC, a software and services company focused on healthcare and the financial sector, was facing a quandary: The business was under pressure, and an expensive new initiative to develop an open source system for healthcare software was not yet producing profits. Viewing the new system as a diversion and a drain on cash, senior executives recommended that it be sold and the firm’s US$3 million annual investment in the initiative be diverted to other projects.

The CEO balked, however. Because the system was a key part of his long-term plans for the company, he not only maintained funding, but separated the new business from the core healthcare unit, thus allowing it to compete against the unit’s existing software. To be sure, this competition created tension around the leadership table. Now, every strategic issue involved a give-and-take between the immediate returns of the core business and the more distant gains of the open source system. And fears among senior executives that the new system could be a threat to the existing software business proved well-founded: The initiative’s managers started beating out managers of the core unit for contracts.

Nonetheless, the CEO’s decision to foster competitive tension among his senior executives proved successful. As the open source system took off, revenues in the core business also grew, by more than 30 percent in 2009. Now that the new system has triggered innovation in the company’s financial-services operation as well, senior executives no longer see it as a distracting drain on resources but rather as a high-stakes experiment to secure the company’s future. In June 2009, the executive heading the open source division received an unusual gift from his colleagues: an inflatable shark, indicating he had earned the right to swim with the other big fish at the table.

The lesson of this story — and the main point that the authors of this paper make — is that firms thrive only when senior teams lead paradoxically, by embracing the tension between established and new projects to maintain a state of constant creative conflict at the highest levels of the organization. (See “Jack’s Right Fight,” by Saj-nicole Joni and Damon Beyer, s+b, Spring 2010.)

The researchers conducted in-depth studies of top management teams at Misys and 11 other companies, including Cray Inc., Hewlett-Packard, IBM, LexisNexis, and Zensar Technologies, looking in particular for the factors that distinguished successful from unsuccessful initiatives undertaken by those teams. Their interviews and observations led the authors to articulate three basic leadership principles. These were all present when firms succeeded in boosting profits and market share.

Principle #1: Develop an overarching identity. A broad sense of identity makes a company more resilient and adaptive. That’s because it gives the company permission, the authors say, to pursue paradoxical strategies that set ambitious benchmarks for both the development of innovation and the growth of core businesses. For example, in the late 1990s, Polaroid developed the most advanced digital camera of its time. But the company was wed to its identity as a seller of film, the authors say, “and could not see why consumers would want a camera without a hard copy image.” In staying committed to film, Polaroid wound up on a course that took it to bankruptcy court. By contrast, Kodak, calling itself “the leading imaging company,” had a self-identity that allowed it to adapt to the technology shift. (A reorganized Polaroid now sells digital cameras.) The researchers also point to the Ball Company and its goal to be the “world’s best container company” — for more than 100 years, that overarching identity sparked innovation, as containers shifted from wooden buckets and glass jars to metal cans and plastic bottles.

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